Today I attended day #4 of the Jim Briggs clinic. It was held out at Will and Mimi Peabody’s place – they live over in the Lazy Mountain area. Their stead is quite beautiful – rolling hay pastures surrounded by mountains. The clinic site was a mowed hay field—one that contained close to two dozen jumps. Most were logs, but there were also some conventional jumps. A downed tree was in the center of the field, and nearby was a log V jump that Vicki constructed.

Unlike yesterday, today the sun shone brightly. My group lesson was scheduled for 3:30 p.m. – a good time of day because I first had time to take care of

things on the home front. This included going for a ride with Pete.

I could tell Raudi was having a good day the minute I got on her. She moved along nicely and went down hills in a very collected and calm fashion. This truism was confirmed immediately upon beginning our lesson. Raudi trotted and then cantered around the edge of the cross country field. And she took the first small log jump fearlessly.

We then got stuck for a bit. Raudi began refusing jumps. Then something clicked. This something was on my part. I realized that I could keep her from veering off-course by using my legs. And this is exactly what I did. We took a few small jumps and then did a sequence of five jumps in succession. After we did this, the riders who were hanging out on one of the middle jumps cheered.

I was really pleased with how Raudi and I did. I would not have foreseen that we’d ever be riding a cross country course. However, this isn’t surprising given that Raudi and I have done many amazing things together, including two lengthy trips. It’s nice when things click because this isn’t always the case. It’s for this reason that I never, ever, take a good day’s ride for granted.